As you can tell from the total lack of posts the internet is a bit fickle here. The room is only open during the week a for a couple of hours in the morning then closes for lunch then opens for another couple of hours in the afternoon, then between the internet not working at all, being v slow and the power out it’s tricky.
But I’m determined to get something up here since it’s been over 2 weeks since I left.
So, here goes.
I eased myself in slowly by spending my first weekend at the lake. A wee group who were already at the hospital were going so I took the chance to join them, forgetting that it would be hotter at the lake than it was here at Nkhoma so I baked nicely for 2 days then got back to the hospital and found the temperature pretty comfortable.
It’s threatening to rain big time just now so I’m hoping I make it to the market without getting soaked-I don’t appear to have packed anything waterproof. The hospital is on the side of a hill, maybe over-ambitiously called Nkhoma Mountain, with a sprawling village surrounding it. It’s an old mission place so there’s an active CCAP church, which I think is something akin to the church of Scotland but don’t quote me on that, and several old colonial style houses where the ex pat doctors live as far as I can tell. The guesthouse, another old colonial looking place, where I stay is just 2 mins away from the hospital so no excuses for being late in the morning. At the moment there are 2 nurses, a doctor and another medical student there. German, Dutch, American and me.
There’s the children ward, male and female general medical wards, surgical ward, TB isolation ward (right up top, all too easy to forget to see the patients there on ward rounds), an outpatient department, maternity and the eye hospital. Oh and not to forget the Casualty room and the physiotherapy room with no physiotherapist.
This week I’m in the Eye Hospital where they do lots of cataract surgery, some glaucoma operations and other bits and bobs. The whole eye hospital is run separately by 2 ophthalmologists, an eccentric older man in a world of his own and a younger one who listens to the Manic Street Preachers on repeat whilst doing surgery. Between them though they’ve almost done 4000 cataract operations this year alone and have implemented training programme for the suture-less cataract surgery they perform. It’s kinda of like a production line but a very effective one that’s literally life changing overnight for the patients. Most have pretty severe cataracts with vision limited to seeing hand movements or perception of light only. They line the patients up outside with dots over the eye to be operated on and give the local anaesthetic. There’s 4 beds in the theatre so while 2 are having surgery, 2 are ready in place scrubbed up so they do about 20 ops in 2-3hours. They collect the patients at mobile clinics which go up to 200km away and some come over from Mozambique too. Tomorrow I’m going to hopefully join them at the totally absurd hour of half past four in the morning to go to Mangochi, a town near the lake, and see it in action.
Hmm, ok I think that’s enough for just now. It hasn’t rained yet so I’m going to chance it and make a dash for the market-I’m loving the mangos but after having beans 3 nights on the trot I think a break is in order.
